From Phil Stenholm:
Another installment about History of Evanston Fire Department
The Changing Face of Evanston
The geographical face of Evanston changed significantly in the years 1907-12. The North Shore Channel sanitary canal was constructed during those years, and the Evanston City Council mandated elevation for most of the railroad tracks located within the Evanston city limits.
Built by the Sanitary District of Chicago, the purpose of the North Shore Channel was to connect Lake Michigan at Wilmette Harbor to the north branch of the Chicago River at approximately Foster & Sacramento. By using water-flow from Lake Michigan, sewage could be flushed south from Wilmette and Evanston to a sewage reduction plant located at Howard Street. This meant that raw sewage would no longer be dumped into Lake Michigan off-shore of Evanston and Wilmette, thus helping to prevent typhoid fever and cholera outbreaks that had plagued the two North Shore suburbs from time-to-time over the years.
Meanwhile, the two railroads operating in Evanston at the time – the Chicago and North Western (C&NWRR) and the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul (CM&StP, or simply “The Milwaukee Road”) — were required to elevate their main-line tracks and build viaducts at certain locations from Howard Street to the Wilmette border.
The C&NWRR freight tracks – known as the Mayfair Division — did not require elevation south of Church Street, because those tracks were used to switch freight cars at manufacturing plants and warehouses located in west and southwest Evanston. Also, the Milwaukee Road tracks — which are now the CTA tracks — were only elevated as far north as Church Street at that time, after the CM&StPRR agreed not to run its trains north of downtown Evanston.
At 1 AM on Friday, April 26, 1912, the EFD responded to a report of a structure fire at Church & Dodge, and by the time companies arrived, they found multiple residences ablaze. The fire began in an unfinished residence belonging to Renaldo Roberti at 1819 Church Street, before communicating to the William Marion residence to the east at 1817 Church St. Marion’s daughter Pearl jumped from a second floor window into the arms of neighbor Emil Pavel, who had just carried his wife and daughter to safety from their residence at 1715 Dodge Ave. Evanston firefighters saved the Pavel residence, but flames claimed the Frank Kuzik residence at 1717 Dodge Avenue, the Lewis Titus residence at 1809 Church Street, and the Ludwig Veiter residence at 1807 Church Street, in addition to the Roberti and Marion residences.
High winds hampered firefighters battling the conflagration, but they did manage to prevent the flames from extending any further north and east, and were able to extinguish the blaze without any injuries to civilians or to firemen. This was the first time all three EFD engines —the Robinson motor engine, the American-LaFrance Metropolitan steamer, and the Ahrens Metropolitan steamer – were pumping at the same fire. The total aggregate damage to the residences was $11,250.
The Ebenezer A. M. E. church was firebombed in 1903 and two houses and a barn were destroyed by a blaze in the so-called “Italian settlement” at Dewey & Payne in 1911, but the 1912 multi-structure conflagration at Church & Dodge was by far the worst fire to date in the 5th ward. The 5th ward was home mainly to immigrants and African Americans at that time, and it was the poorest and most politically isolated ward in the city, without a significant business district, with no high-value residential properties, no university, and no border with the City of Chicago to give its aldermen the power to make common cause with aldermen from the other wards.
Without the leverage of the other six wards, the 5th was pretty much on its own when fighting political battles within the city council, and so when EFD Chief Carl Harrison recommended in 1912 that a fourth fire station be built at Emerson & Ashland – the bull’s eye center of the 5th ward at that time — there was no appetite for it in the city council, beyond that of the two 5th ward aldermen.
About a month later, on May 29, 1912, the entire Evanston Fire Department along with Chicago F. D. engine companies 70 and 112 battled an early-morning blaze at the Bogart Building at 1306 Sherman Ave. Firefighting efforts continued until well into the afternoon, as Evanston and Chicago firemen worked to extinguish the stubborn blaze. The Workers Cooperative Grocery store and the North Shore Creamery located on the first floor as well as apartments located on the second and third floors were gutted. The $16,700 in total damage made it one of the ten worst fires in terms of property loss in Evanston’s history up until that point in time.
During the Summer of 1913, a mechanical resuscitator known as the “Lung Motor” was placed into service at Fire Station # 1, and it was an instant success. The invention had been demonstrated at Evanston Hospital the previous October, and the Lung Motor was so successful that the Evanston Fire Department received a $25 award from the Life Saving Devices Company of Chicago as the “Top Life Savers in the Nation” at the end of 1913!
The EFD also responded to a number of mutual-aid requests for the Lung Motor received from other North Shore suburbs, and even occasionally responded with the Lung Motor to the Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago.
While the Lung Motor was initially placed aboard the speedy Robinson auto-truck at Station # 1, inhalator runs were taking the motor engine out of service too much. So when an automobile police ambulance replaced the horse-drawn police ambulance in the bay located east of Fire Station # 1 in May 1916, a new joint police-fire policy began at that time which directed a fireman from Station # 1 to be detailed to ride with two police station officers in the police ambulance when responding to Lung Motor (inhalator) calls, thus keeping the motor engine available to respond to fires.
The first automobile Evanston police ambulance was built by William Erby & Sons on a White Motor Company chassis, and it was in service for eleven years before being demolished in a collision with a bus in September 1927. At that point, the inhalator was moved back to EFD Engine Co. 1. Then beginning in 1952, the inhalator was placed aboard the EFD’s new rescue truck (Squad 21), and inhalators were assigned to all five engine companies beginning in 1959.
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#1 by Phil Stenholm on April 29, 2021 - 12:38 PM
Along with the continual “Changing Face of Evanston,” a number of Evanston streets went by other names back in the day. The names did not all change at the same time. Some of the street names changed prior to 1870, while others were changed after 1930.
For example, “Sheridan Road ” (also known as the “The Yellowstone Trail”) was built as a highway connecting Chicago with Racine, WI, over a period of many years. The Evanston portion of the highway was completed in the 1890’s (very early in the process) simply by upgrading pre-existing Evanston streets and avenues (Arnold Avenue, Wheeler Avenue, Michigan Avenue, University Place, Chicago Avenue, Isabella Street, and Ridge Avenue).
Evanston’s West Railroad Avenue was upgraded by the WPA as a highway in the 1930’s and renamed “Green Bay Road,” a name used to designate the highway in all municipalities from Evanston north to the Illiniois-Wisconsin border.
The construction of the North Shore Channel in the years 1907-12 caused a number of previously through-streets to be interrupted, or — as was the case with Cooper Avenue — completely obliterated. (Cooper Avenue ran north from Central Street halfway between Girard Avenue and Bryant Avenue, essentially what is now the west driveway of Fire Statiion #3). Dodge Avenue, Darrow Avenue, Dewey Avenue, and Ashland Avenue all connected through to Grant Street from the south, Wesley Avenue and Asbury Avenue intersected with Colfax Street, and Bryant Avenue intersected with Lincoln Street and ran as a through-street from Grant Street to Isabella Street.
Soon after Evanston annexed South Evanston in 1892, South Evanston’s main street (then known as Lincoln Avenue) became, indeed, “Main Street.” (Evanston already had a Lincoln Street in North Evanston). Also, Rinn Street (east of Callan Avenue) and Warren Street (west of Callan Avenue) became the more-impressive sounding “South Boulevard,” and Benson Avenue eventually became known as “Elmwood Avenue” south of Davis Street.
The area immediately south of Calvary Cemetery and east of the CM&StP RR tracks (now CTA tracks) was once known as “Germania” because it was originally home mainly to German immigrants, and it was originally part of the Village of South Evanston (and the City of Evanston after Evanston annexed South Evanston in 1892). But because the residents of Germania felt they had been politically neglected by the City of Evanston and because they felt more of a kinship with the Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago than they did with the other residents of the 3rd Ward in South Evanston, Germania was annexed by the City of Chicago — with the approval of the City of Evanston — in November 1914.
Here is how the names changed:
OLD NAME: Arnold Avenue
NEW NAME:
1. Sheridan Road (between South Boulevard and Main Street)
2. Ashland Avenue (south of Calvary Cemetery after annexation of Germania by Chicago)
OLD NAME: Ayars Place
NEW NAME: Garnett Place
OLD NAME: Bailey Street
NEW NAME: Roslyn Place
OLD NAME: Baxter Street
NEW NAME: Sheridan Place
OLD NAME: Benson Avenue
NEW NAME: Elmwood Avenue (south of Davis Street)
OLD NAME: Boomer Place (ran between Eastwood Avenue and Poplar Avenue)
NEW NAME: Harrison Street
OLD NAME: Botsford Place :
NEW NAME: Dartmouth Place
OLD NAME: Chicago Avenue
NEW NAME: Sheridan Road (between University Place and Isabella Street)
OLD NAME: College Avenue (original Village of Evanston)
NEW NAME: Davis Street
OLD NAME: Cook Street
NEW NAME: Garrett Place
OLD NAME: Cooper Avenue
(NEW NAME: NONE (street obliterated by construction of North Shore Channel)
OLD NAME: Dewey Avenue
NEW NAME: Eastwood Avenue (north of the North Shore Channel)
OLD NAME: East Railroad Avenue
NEW NAME: Poplar Avenue (north of the North Shore Channel)
OLD NAME: Evans Avenue
NEW NAME: Lincolnwood Drive
OLD NAME: Evanston Avenue
NEW NAME: Pioneer Road
OLD NAME: Germania Street
NEW NAME: Jonquil Terrace (after annexation of Germania by Chicago)
OLD NAME: Goodrich Street
NEW NAME: Lincoln Street
OLD NAME: Grosse Point Avenue
NEW NAME: Prairie Avenue (north of Central Street)
OLD NAME: Isabella Street
NEW NAME: Sheridan Road (east of Ridge Avenue)
OLD NAME: Lincoln Avenue (original Village of South Evanston)
NEW NAME: Main Street
OLD NAME: Maple Place
NEW NAME: Greenview Avenue (after annexation of Germania by Chicago)
OLD NAME: Michigan Avenue
NEW NAME: Sheridan Road (between Greenwood Street and University Place)
OLD NAME: Nate Place
NEW NAME: Clinton Place
OLD NAME: Park Street
NEW NAME: University Place (west of Sherman Avenue)
OLD NAME: Ridge Avenue
NEW NAME: Sheridan Road (north of Isabella Street)
OLD NAME: Rinn Street (east of Callan Avenue)
NEW NAME: South Boulevard
OLD NAME: Schurz Avenue
NEW NAME: Bosworth Avenue (after annexation of Germania by Chicago)
OLD NAME: Stockham’s Place
NEW NAME: Burnham Place
OLD NAME: University Place
NEW NAME: Sheridan Road (east of Chicago Avenue)
OLD NAME: Warren Street (west of Callan Avenue)
NEW NAME: South Boulevard
OLD NAME: West Railroad Avenue
NEW NAME: Green Bay Road
OLD NAME: Wheeler Avenue
NEW NAMES:
1. Michigan Avenue (south of Main Street)
2. Sheridan Road (between Main Street and Burnham Place)